The November 2011 issue of Chronicles has a major problem on page five.

In “Aborted Economy” (American Proscenium), John C. Seiler, Jr., writes, and the editors boldly highlight in a pull-quote, a statement about “the 1973 class of ‘fetal matter,’ as the pro-aborts call them.”

I have reread the article several times looking for support for that statement.  But no, it exists only as a naked, unsupported assumption.

The statement is just as empty as any leftist dogma.  It visually screams at us, like the Occupy Wall Street gangs, as though louder volume were sufficient proof of truthfulness.

So prove false this similar statement: “The 1973’ers would now be living in more ‘underwater’ homes, with more delinquent mortgages, or in even more filthy apartments paid for by government welfare.  Their miseducated children would be vandalizing the vacant storefronts, and their unmarried, unemployed parents would be stretching the lines for even more government handouts.  They would further burden the tax load, increasing the deficit and debt.”

Following your example, I won’t bother providing any support for those dogmatic assumptions.  You should just accept them because the statements support what someone wants you to believe.

You cannot decry the illogic of the left, and then expect us to accept the same garbage from you just because it’s something your author wants us believe.

—Byron Smith

(Address Withheld)

 

Mr. Seiler Replies:

Basically, my whole article supported my statement that Mr. Smith quoted.  No people, no production.  Aborted babies produce nothing, leading to economic decline, as seen in America, Europe, Japan and, soon, China.  I only had one page to make my argument.  But here are some more details.  According to 2011 data from the Alan Guttmacher Institute, legal abortions rose from zero in 1969, the year before 15 states liberalized their laws, to 700,000 in 1973, the year of the Roe v. Wade edict, to 1.6 million in the years of the 1980’s; abortions since then dropped down to 1.2 million per year.

Today, almost all of the 700,000 lost in 1973 would be productive members of society, paying taxes, living in homes, raising families.  Instead, they’re dead.  And the monetary loss doesn’t include the despair the mothers have lived with since, as well as the despair of the fathers and other family members.

Mr. Smith may be channeling the argument, first put forward in 1999 by Freakonomics coauthor Steven D. Levitt, that legalized abortion reduced crime by getting rid of future criminals.  But that argument was quickly demolished by Steve Sailer and John Lott, then again in 2005 by two economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston,

Christopher L. Foote and Christopher F. Goetz.  Sailer has a summary online at www.isteve.com/abortion.htm.